"Where is the Black Country?"  

The question created much amusement for my American visitors.  It was asked by a man in the welcome short film, at the Black Country museum.  It was really his response which prompted the laughter.

Vehemently stated, in the broadest local tones, he answered his own query, "It's wherever a Black Country man says it is!"

True enough as it goes.  I once asked around and got as many different answers, as there were people in my survey.  But the council maintains its official position.  It's any place lying within the metropolitan boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

That's cleared that one up then.  Until you ask that bloke from Burntwood, who swore that Brownhills was Black Country, always was and always would be, despite sitting firmly within South Staffordshire.

The local legend goes that Queen Victoria was once travelling by train (or coach) through the area.  She witnessed first hand what an American traveller had already described.  'Black by day, red by night' read his report.  The factories, foundries and pits would do that, burning through the night with their furnaces and kilns; vast chimney stacks pumping out dark smoke regardless of the hour.

The monarch was not amused.   "Close those curtains on this black country,"  she instructed her lady-in-waiting.  Thus the window's view was obscured and she never got to see my gt-gt grandparents waving back at her.

It's only recently that the Black Country has been awarded its own flag.  The black and red recalls that Victorian description.  The chains touch upon the chain-making industries dotted around Dudley and Sandwell especially.  The whiteness in the centre is in the shape of a glass kiln chimney.  It and the chain are representative of how the Industrial Revolution arrived and hit hard in the Black Country.

It's our heritage and our pride.

The evening was closing in, as I drove down the lane into Horningsham.  Sunlight played through the tall trees lining the road, back-lighting their leaves and casting such beautiful shadows upon the way ahead.

It felt almost mystical, like some scene taken from a fairy tale and given form.  The long shadows at the end of day will do that. 

Giving weight to that quest-like feeling was the reason that I was there.  I'd been close by and seen the village on the map, then took a detour to visit it.  There was history between my family and this place.  I wanted to see for myself what they had seen nearly two centuries ago.

On June 18th 1815, a baby named Frederick Harrington was baptized in St John the Baptist Church.  His father was William Harrington, a coachman, and his mother was named Ann.  She was a local girl - born and bred in Horningsham, Wiltshire.  Presumably this was the church where her family worshipped.

As for William, I don't know where he came from.  He died before any census could tell us.

Before Frederick was ten years old, the family up and left for the industrial north.  They ended up in the wool town of Wolverhampton, where William and Ann Harrington took possession of the Red Cow pub in Dudley Street.  Their daughter Sarah was born there in 1823, and died a month later.  Another daughter, Caroline, was born in 1825 and she survived.  She married a Black Country man named William Beech and had many children.

As for Frederick, his marriage to another incomer to Wolverhampton - Mary Pragnall - eventually resulted in me.  He is my gt-gt-gt grandfather.

So now I stood in the churchyard where my ancestors had most definitely stood nearly two hundred years before.  I looked out over the lands of Longleat House, the estate meeting the horizon in a panoramic view.  The sunlight still leaving long shadows from gravestones and buildings.  You could see for miles up there.  All green, fresh and clean, the sort of scenery that you could dream upon for hours. 

They left this for Wolverhampton, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.  They swapped those rolling hills and idyllic country for a region which was grimy, noisy and crammed with people.  "Black by day, red by night," is how the Black Country was described back then.  Slums and tenements were thrown up overnight, the population erupted with the factories, foundries and pits.

I couldn't imagine it.  I couldn't grasp why a young married couple would take their baby into that, leaving an area so pristine as this.  Horningsham blew my mind, because I couldn't fathom the rationale.  Until later, that is, when I looked into the history and found famine here back then. 

They Christened their baby at St John the Baptist Church, then moved north into the grime to ensure that he lived.  It was a plan that worked, because I was there to return to the beginning; the gt-gt-gt-gt grandchild of those who took that decision to thrive.

I'll raise a toast to that!

Look up!  The temporary banner for Beautiful Britain has gone and it's been replaced with a permanent one.  My undying thanks go here to Miyamashi, who created this banner, and Paul, who created the last one and helped me sort out the colour scheme in my store.  I really wish I was that artistic! 

Beautiful Britain has gone through a few redesigns since its inception.  Most of them I did myself and they were frankly awful.  I'm not great at visualising colour schemes, nor matching things up in that way.  After several attempts, over many hours, I finally produced something which I could live with.  I linked it to my friend, who took one look and told me that the 1990s had called.  They wanted their website colours back.

That's when Paul stepped in to knock together a temporary banner (in full knowledge that Miyamashi was working on the permanent one).  Here's that banner for archive's sake.  I really liked it!

Of course that also needed a colour scheme to go around it.  My friend Ember graciously helped me out there.  She made it look absolutely wonderful. 

Here's how it looked:

But then Miyamashi's banner came in and it was all changed again!  I put it in, but it didn't match the colours which Ember had chosen.  It ended up with a handful of people in a Skype call trying to direct me on this, before Paul just took it out of my hands. 

That was very much for the best. I'm now really pleased with how it turned out.  It won't be the last time that the banner is changed, as I still need to make it into Cornwall and Scotland to take photographs.  As separate countries, they will have their own main page folder, alongside England and Wales.  Miyamashi is poised to add their flags to the banner, when that happens.

For now, this is the grand unveiling of the new look Beautiful Britain on Zazzle.  Thank you all who helped me get there!

If you take a look in your browser address bar, you'll spot a bit of a change.  Beautiful Britain now has its very own, bought and paid for URL!

I'd been advised to do this from the outset, but I was a little wary until I'd tested the waters here.  If I wrote, would people read?  After all, any blog's success is a tale of two halves - the writer and the reader.  It's been a week now and I know that you're out there. 

You might not be commenting very much (and that's fine!), but 1,113 of you have popped in to read my blog entries.  Thank you very much for that.  You've made a lonely writer very proud!

This morning, I put my money where my mouth is.  I've bought www.beautiful-britain.com  (co.uk was already taken) for the next ten years.  Let the journey begin!

It was so cold that day. I was standing outside the two cathedrals of Coventry, one huge and very modern, the other in ruins after that terrible night during World War Two.  There was snow on the ground and my fingers had turned bright red.  No gloves, because I'm stupid.  A metal camera turning icy to the touch in my hands.  I just wanted to take my pictures and leave for somewhere less Arctic in its general temperature.

But snow wasn't the only thing on the ground.  There was a squirrel sitting close by, just watching me from behind the railings.  On a whim, I turned to photograph it too, but it must have been suddenly camera shy.  It took off as I snapped it.

It was an abortive picture, but still cool to see the squirrel darting out onto the pedestrian cobblestones.  I still held my camera up by my face, wondering if I could get a better photograph before my fingers fell off.  Or frostbite set in, or something.

Then the squirrel changed course.  To my stunned delight, it came right up to my foot and looked up at me.

Still the creature was so fast that I could barely get it in the frame.  I was clicking away like mad, but as soon as I had him, he was gone again. 

I was starting to draw a little crowd, as passers-by paused to giggle at the over-familiar squirrel.  None of us expected what happened next.  The squirrel climbed, not up the nearest tree, but up my left leg.   To cries of 'Wow!' from a young lady watching, the creature arrived on my breast and peered inquisitively into the camera lens.

NOW!

It was too close.  It was too fast.  My camera, for all its idiot-proof genius, could not focus quickly enough.  I got the picture, but, as you see, it was all a blur.  To be fair, I didn't care too much about Zazzle or anywhere else just then.  I was too busy being enchanted by this squirrel and the fact it was scampering all over me.

Unfortunately, the camera must have appeared very boring upon its inspection (or simply wasn't food after all), because the squirrel immediately darted across my chest and ran down my other leg.

At least I finally got it in focus!  And a round of congratulations from the onlookers, as we all tried to work out how that just happened.

As for the squirrel, it took off across the old Coventry Cathedral grounds in search of a new diversion.

In Parliament House in Machynlleth, there sits a chair. The legend engraved across its back reads Y Gwir Yn Erbyn Y Byd.  In English that translates as The Truth Against the World.  But what does it all mean?

It's all about speaking out the truth, even when that's unpopular with the crowds.  People tell all kinds of lies, or say nothing at all, in order to save their own necks.  Some just do it to fit in or 'not to bring everyone down', justifying it as something good and noble.  No matter which innocent party gets placed in harm's way.

The scale doesn't matter.   Joining in or ignoring the bullying in the playground is just as bad as perjury in the courtroom.  Silence means approval.  Bleating the same lines as everyone else just makes you sheeplike.

Nobody said that The Truth Against the World was easy.  Being the lone voice turns the spotlight onto you, but that also makes you the sole light in the darkness.  It's a dangerous place, if the crowd turns into a mob.  Or you could be the one to turn the crowd.  Sometimes it only takes one person to articulate the fact that the Emperor wears no clothes.  They were all thinking it anyway.

When you speak up, you give others permission to speak up too; or at least you set a precedent of freedom of speech.

When I first encountered Y Gwir Yn Erbyn Y Byd, I was told that it was the battle-cry of everyone from Boudicca through King Arthur to Owain Glyndŵr himself. It wasn't.  It's uniquely Celtic, and as Welsh as bards and song, but it's not that old.   It was probably first spoken by Iolo Morganwg in 1792.  But then he WAS a bard and who better to say the words.

It's become the motto of the Gorsedd.  The Bardic Chair pictured was from a meeting of the Eisteddfod in Colwyn Bay.  Iolo Morganwg set his own precedent at the first Gorsedd in 1792, when he laid out his vision for peace.  As the people met, he took out his sword and laid it on the Logan Stone.  Then he ritually and visibly sheathed it again.  

"Y gwir yn erbyn y byd?"  He asked, then added a further question, "a oes heddwch?"  And is there peace?

Speak your mind, there will be peace.  There will be no violence here, if everyone just told it as truly as they found it; and heroes were found whenever and wherever the bullies attacked the weak.  Are words really that powerful?  Remember these were Welsh bards, so they certainly thought so.  The pen is always mightier than the sword.   History is written by the winners, and that is the story that is remembered.  The songs sung cement the reputation.

"Calon wrth galon," came the response to Iolo's question.  Heart to heart; and surely on Valentine's Day, as it is at the time of writing, I need not explain that.  The person sitting on the Bardic Chair asks again, "A oes heddwch?"  And is there peace?

Heddwch needs an extra note.  It's not just peace in an abstract sense.  The 'wch' ending makes it a verb, something to do.  More properly rendered then, it's The Truth Against the World, and will YOU bring peace?  Your heart with their heart, all that love, and will YOU bring peace?

There's one final exchange at the Gorsedd.  "Gwaedd uwch Adwaedd, a oes heddwch?"  Shout above the shouting, and is there peace?  Even if the whole world seeks to drown out your voice, will you go on talking?  Can you be silenced, when peace is on the line?  What will it take to make you bow your head, touch your forelock and repeat the words that you're given to repeat? 

Or like the Welsh bards, will YOU bring peace?  For me, there's no question.  Y Gwir Yn Erbyn Y Byd.

It's fair to say that I scared myself.  But some things you don't even think about until you're there, in the surroundings, imagining it all on a deep soul level.

Way back in my distant past, I used to be a tour guide at Old Moseley Hall, near Wolverhampton.  As with anyone in that position, I had to be ready to answer any question put to me from a member of the public.  While this was usually about the property, the English Civil War, King Charles II or the 17th century in general, there was another constant.

"Are there any ghosts at Old Moseley Hall?" 

Unlike many National Trust properties, there wasn't much in the way of paranormal activity at Old Moseley Hall.  Which isn't to say that there weren't stories. 

First you need the background.  After the Battle of Worcester, in 1651, King Charles II had to flee for his life.  The Parliamentarians had won and they were after adding his head beside that of his executed father.  During the celebrated pursuit which followed, Charles hid at the hall for a short while.  From its windows, he could see his wounded soldiers limping back to Scotland along what used to be the main road through Wolverhampton to the north.  It ran right outside.

Story number one is that some people, driving late at night down that lane, have sensed those civil war soldiers still passing by.  But that's a rare tale and only ever heard from a friend of a friend of a friend.  It may have even been inspired by the more famous, and much more attested, similar ghostly occurrences from the battlefields of Culloden or Marston Moor.

The second Old Moseley Hall ghost story has much more going for it.  That involves the top floor attic area; and it's the place where I really gave myself the chills.

Back in the 17th century being Catholic was quite dangerous.  The Whitgreave family of Old Moseley Hall were Catholic.  This was always the most interesting part of my tour, as I revealed the hidden chapel and told what happened to the pewter candlesticks and vessels for the altar.  (Pewter melts in fire. There was always a fire blazing in an antechamber hearth during a service, just in case.)  A priest hole was concealed in the floorboards on a lower level.  The Whitgreave family knew the risks to life and limb, yet they smuggled in priests and took the sacrament anyway.

It's in this area where the presence has been so widely felt.  Various visitors shiver there, or feel slightly unwell, and there are those who have seen the Lady herself.  A fellow tour guide in period costume?  No.  There should have been no-one there at all.  But nevertheless she's occasionally seen, just standing before the altar, or moving towards the antechamber; always on the top floor.

On this particular day, I was living the historian's dream.  For the first (and last) time ever on my watch, no tourists had turned up at all.  I'd done an earlier tour, and I did one later, but for this slot I was free to just wander around the property completely on my own.   There was no-one else there at all.  Even the store and cafe were in different buildings.

You're waiting for me to say that I saw her, aren't you?   I went there.  I stood alone in the Catholic Chapel and soaked in the atmosphere.  I remembered the Lady and asked aloud if she wanted to chat.  No response.  I reached out in spirit, seeing if I could somehow sense her.  She was not there; or if she was, then she didn't want to speak with the likes of me.

After a while, I left my pew and wandered out.  But my mind was full of her and her times.  I wondered who she was (nobody knows) and what terrible times she must have lived through (if indeed she was as 17th century as reports on her outfit would have it).  And my memory threw up the nursery rhyme.

So many nursery rhymes are mnemonics.  They recall a moment in history or a useful tip, to be passed on in a way even toddlers could remember.  Goosey, Goosey, Gander is no exception; and it was very relevant to Old Moseley Hall, with its hidden chapel and recusant worshippers.

The geese were the Roundheads.  Parliamentarians, often of the same Puritanical bent as Oliver Cromwell, or just hired thugs enjoying the impunity of committing religious persecution.  They raided homes which were known, or suspected, to belong to Catholic families.  Their searches took them all over, upstairs, downstairs and in my lady's chamber being only part of it.  They were looking for the same pewter accoutrements, priests or chapels which Old Moseley Hall so readily kept.

As for anyone admitting to being Catholic, or merely getting in the way, then think long and hard on that last line:  'took him by his left leg and threw him down the stairs'.

I knew the nursery rhyme and I knew the history.  But until I stepped out of that chapel and stood at the top of the staircase at Old Moseley Hall, I didn't know a thing.  Suddenly the mental imagery had a real world setting upon which to hook itself.  I could see quite clearly the actual terror and the horrific violence that such a sweet and familiar nursery rhyme evoked.

So I spoke it.  Slowly, half in a whisper, I told the nursery rhyme to the air, as I descended that 17th century staircase.  I felt it, heard it, saw it, in my mind's eye, how it could have happened.  And by the time I reached the ground floor, the goosebumps were raised on my arms and my hair was standing on end.

Had I finally drawn an unseen audience in the Lady ghost?  Or simply scared myself?   I suspect the latter, but it all seemed so very real.

We found the place by accident, just driving around the Cheshire countryside. But we've been back many times since.  It's called Mersey View, in the Bellamonte Park high on the wooded slopes above Frodsham.

You can see for miles up there.  On a clear day that's as far as Snowdonia in the West and the Pennines in the East.  The greatest sight of all is right in front of you.  The whole of Merseyside laid out like a map on the landscape.

The Rivers Mersey and Weaver both follow their courses, emptying out in Liverpool Bay.  The Manchester Ship Canal takes a straighter route off into the north.  They all glisten in the sunlight.  Then, when the sun begins to set, they reflect back the fiery sky.

That picture is zoomed in.  I wanted to capture the sunset over Liverpool.   In reality, I was far away and far above, and there were many more towns and cities in my view.  Warrington, Runcorn, Ellesmere Port, all those places edging the Mersey north and south; and some which line the Dee. 

You can watch the ships coming in, bright in daylight, illuminated at night.  The smaller ones mere specks, while detail can easily be discerned on those great liners.  Of course some are more famous than others, like the Ferry 'Cross the Mersey with its own song.

But mostly I like to just sit up there dreaming, looking out across the distant hills and mountains, where we saw the beacons fired up for the Queen's Jubilee.  I wonder if the Lancastrians and Welsh are sitting on their summits looking back at me.  I imagine the history playing out in the miles below.  Or I think of nothing and just enjoy the view.

The products illustrating this blog are on the American version of Zazzle.  If you wish to see the same in your local Zazzle store (thus neatly side-stepping any customs duty), then just change the root URL accordingly.  If you're not sure what that is, then check out the International Zazzle!

My cousin and I are walking down the street, side by side but sixty years apart. 

I'm not talking about age.  We're the same age, give or take nine months (I was apparently such a cute baby that my auntie wanted one; she got him).  I'm talking about where our heads were at the time.

This was Coventry.  He owns a security business (EMK Events Ltd for ALL your crowd control needs); I'm a historian. He was here on business, as his company are providing the crowd safety for a major event in the city.  I'm there with a camera to photograph the scenery for Beautiful Britain.

"That pub's Victorian."  I tell him, as we stroll along a busy street.  My head is turning back and forth like I'm watching a tennis match, looking at the buildings on one side of the street and comparing them to the other.

He nods, "I wouldn't like to take their business.  It's a bit rough down here."  He would. He'd work out a strategy to deal with the rough customers.  He's always telling me that he wouldn't get involved with such and such a venue because of its troublesome clientele.  Then a month or so later, there is no troublesome clientele, because his security officers are ensuring it.  "And that's a bit of a dive."

"I don't think Hitler agreed with you."  I opine, still comparing buildings.  On one side of the street, it's all 19th and early 20th century architecture.  On the other side, the entire terrace is that bland and frankly awful 1960s concrete block style.  But this IS Coventry, ground zero for Moonlight Sonata on November 14th 1940.  A beautiful name for the most devastating single night, on a single city, of the Blitz. "He left that whole side standing."

"Yeah."  said my cousin, in a tone of voice which suggested that was yet another travesty to lay at the door of the Third Reich.  "He did."

I just love how two people, walking along the same street, have such different perspectives on what they see.  It makes for some interesting conversations.

Chirk Castle seems to go on forever; but in a good way, full of fascination and delight. 

One moment you are in a wing lived in for centuries, all Georgian fittings and Edwardian grace.  Then you're passing through a door like Alice passed through the looking glass.  Now it's stark stone and Medieval staircases, antechambers and armouries.

Of course there's a dungeon.  This is a Norman castle, built by Roger Mortimer (of betraying Edward II fame) to subdue the wild Welsh.  As someone with Celtic DNA, this afforded me the perfect opportunity to stand in his bedroom whispering to the ghost, 'So what are you going to do now?' 

Then there are the gardens.  They go on for what seemed like miles. Long lawns were lined with patches filled with daffodils; winding pathways twisted amongst rockeries into the woods; hidden lakes appeared in sculptured groves; the scenery swept from the edge of the final topiary all the way across Cheshire and Shropshire.  You never quite knew what might lie behind the next bit of shrubbery.  Statues, tiny ornate huts, a pavilion, it all made me feel like a child again, on some big adventure of exploration.

So perhaps it wasn't all that surprising that I failed to notice that I'd stopped encountering fellow tourists.  The gardens were vast enough, with so many concealed wonders, that meetings with other humans had been relatively few and far between.  Out in the garden, there are no National Trust guides to glance at their watches and call time on looking at pretty things.

I kind of got the hint that Chirk Castle was now closed, when I finally meandered back to the gate.  It was locked.  This castle built to keep the Celts out had succeeded in locking one in.  Oops.

The fundamental thing about castles - the absolute fundamental thing and indeed their reason to be - is that they're incredibly hard to break into.  The same is true of the opposite.  They're not designed with a view to just clambering over a gate nor scaling a wall.  Not without a large army furnished with siege equipment anyway. 

I tried to access the castle again, mostly to find a member of staff, but also imagining with some glee wandering through it alone.  There had been too many pesky tourists earlier on, disturbing my historical reveries.  But the doors were locked.  Good fight, Roger Mortimer.

Wandering along a pathway, trailing a curtain wall, I located a door which said 'Staff Only - No Entrance Past This Point'.  What's the worst that could happen?   If guards came clattering out in full armour (or a National Trust volunteer in full tweed jacket), I could just ask to be let out.  It would be the best solution for all concerned.  But I didn't need that to happen.  The door was unlocked.

I found myself eventually outside, looking across to the hillsides of Wrexham, where my ancestors would have come threatening the peace of this evil Marcher Lord.  And more importantly, given that this was now the 21st century, overlooking the car-park, where my car sat lonely.  That car-park had been full when I arrived. 

Feeling quite smug at having extracted myself from Norman hands, I made my way down there, then drove carefully towards the main exit.  There were sheep on the road, each one appearing stunned to find someone still here.  But they're sheep.  They always look stunned.  Then disaster.

I'd been so busy getting out of the castle and gardens, that it hadn't even occurred to me that the estate itself would be secured at closing time.  I could see the road outside, but the tall, black and beautifully decorated railing gates were padlocked.  Oh dear. 

Fortunately, they also had a huge notice, with big letters, giving me a telephone number if I'd accidentally been locked inside.  I wasn't the first then.   They must hate people like me.  I called and was directed all the way back to the entrance gate, a mile or two in the opposite direction.  I would be seen, the gentleman on the end of the line informed me, the gate would be opened. 

A three point turn through sheep is interesting.  They really are quite unaware, aren't they?   Much bleating later, it was managed without ovine injury and I made it back to the other side of the estate.  I never did see the person who would see me.  But the gate was open.  Freedom!  And I happily made my escape.

These Chirk Castle postcards are on the American version of Zazzle.  If you wish to see the same in your local Zazzle store (thus neatly side-stepping any customs duty), then just change the root URL accordingly.  If you're not sure what that is, then check out the International Zazzle!